The Will Of Star, Part 4

           I’ve always minded my own business. I don’t cause trouble.
           It is unfathomable to me how I could have landed myself in such a quagmire.
           Today I watch, mystified and horrified, Oracene of the violet eyes march up my front walk, purposeful and resolute.
           Two decisive qualities that I can’t triumph over.
           Oracene is wearing her cheetah gloves and a beret on her smooth red curls.
           “Lourdes.” She smiles confidently and puts out a paw. “How’s it going?”
           I shake her hand numbly. I’m not entirely convinced of her presence yet. How can she be here?
           “You’ve been friends with Star a long time, I’ve heard.”
           “Y-yeah.” My teeth are suddenly chattering.
           “Cold, isn’t it?” Oracene pushes past me, lets herself in.
           I’m at a loss for what to do.
           So I close the door behind me and shuffle after her into the living room.
           Don’t argue.
           Oracene has made herself comfortable in His favorite chair. She whips out a notepad like it is a sword and prepares to duel.
           I preclude a probable interrogation by firing quickly.
           “What are you doing here?”
           Oracene’s lip curls.
           “What do you think?” Contemptuously.
           I can’t meet her eyes, even though I know their brightness is artificial.
           It somehow doesn’t make them any less real.
           “I want to talk to you about the murders.”
           Her words are like a death sentence.
           Although death doesn’t sound so bad just now.
           “What about?” I begin systematically ripping out the seam of my sleeve with my bitten-down fingernails.
           She begins to begin, but first pauses, a sly smile playing about her magenta lips, a morphing hula-hoop of lip-gloss sheen, her orchid eyes sparkling.
           “You believe every word Star says, don’t you?”
           It’s not a question, not even an accusation, but an astonished, condescending statement of revelation.
           I feel the distinctive pain of imminent tears, glass in the veins beneath my skin.
           And I don’t answer.
           I have the strangest idea that Oracene did not actually come here for answers to her apparent questions. No, she only wants me to become aware of these answers.
           She’s asking the questions.
           I’m the one learning.
           “Don’t get me wrong, darling.” I wonder if she realizes how forcefully she reminds me of Star.
           Maybe she does.
           Maybe she’s vicariously trying to remedy her own problems.
           Maybe I’m wrong, but this seems like an inefficient way to go about things. Not to mention potentially very messy.
           What do I know about solving problems?
           Who am I to lecture anyone about it?
           “There’s nothing wrong with being loyal. I’m not saying there is. It just means you have to choose your friends more carefully.”
           “Have you come to offer me advice, Oracene?”
           She is not nearly as fazed by the fact that I know her name than I was by her knowledge in that area.
           Or at least she exercises extraordinary control over her facial muscles.
           “Not unless you want it, Lourdes,” she ripostes coolly, expertly. “I just want to…point a few things out, that’s all.”
           I am aware that I hate this girl with an intense desperation, such a bottomless rage that I cannot control my facial muscles at all.
           I try to understand why.
           But Skadi and God both forsake me at this crux.
           “Get it over with.”
           She accepts the terms cordially, though with a rising riptide of amusement.
           “Just think logically for a moment, if you could.” She stands, paces before me. “If you can, at this point.”
           “There’s no cause for insults,” I snap. “I’m listening. And that’s all I agreed to do.”
           She nods stiffly, irritated at being interrupted.
           “Three murders. All of seventeen-year-old boys.
           “Now who do we know that has a grudge against that particular genre of people, Lourdes?”
           “That doesn’t mean it’s her.” Gritting my teeth.
           I feel as though I’ve swallowed a liter of sand. My voice comes out rough, gravelly, more similar to a driveway than a soprano by now.
           “Who has the power to pull this off without incriminating herself?”
           “But…”
           “Who has a ‘legitimate’ spiritual motive?”
           “You can’t…”
           “Who has zero qualms about spilling innocent blood?”
           “You don’t…”
           “Who has a habit of betrayal?”
           “Shut up!”
           My eyes are squeezed shut, I’m standing, my palms against my ears.
           Her words ring truer than middle C.
           Slowly my eyelashes part, reluctantly. Oracene and her triumphant smile come into focus.
           “Until next time.”
           Her skirt bounces around her ankles like Maui waves. 
 
           “Star?”
           I am pathetic.
           The fact that this is a phone call instead of a face-to-face confrontation proves it. And I am still incapable of speaking audibly.
           “Star, I just want to…” I break off, coughing. I notice there’s a rock-hard silence on the other end of the line. “About the murders I mean. The rumors aren’t true, right? We’re not involved?”
           I’m no longer able to persuade myself of her innocence. Our innocence.
           If I hear her say it, I’m sure I can believe again.
           Even if she’s lying through her perfect teeth.
           “Of course not, Lourdes. Don’t be silly.”
           I let out a long breath of relief, as sincere as winter and as awaited as spring.
           Star breathes new life into me, shoots of grass and scattered crocuses.
           “But Lourdes…” She sounds upset. Peculiar in itself – these days it’s only Elif that provokes violent vicissitudes of mood in her. “I don’t want to tell you this. But…”
           “What?” I feel so breathlessly on cue.
           “ I think that…” She hesitates, ever the thespian. “I think Miles is the one behind the murders.”
           “Miles?” I echo in complete, boundless disbelief. I’m briefly surprised that my shock waves don’t knock Her favorite blue vase straight off the kitchen table. “Why would he…?”
           “Miles,” she whispers back, miserably.
           “But how…” I squawk, stutter.
           “Why else do you think I broke up with the most popular guy in school? He’s got problems, Lourdes.” Grimly. “I think he’s trying to get me back. By carrying out Skadi’s law.”
           “Oh my –“ I stop, mid-sentence. Was she admitting that this entire nightmare follows Skadi’s law?
           Oracene, in the back of my mind, laughs.
           Of course I’m right, she says, her smug countenance akin to my life flashing before my eyes.
           I think I may collapse.
           “Goodbye Star.” Too abruptly.
           Click.
           Oh God.

           I’m pondering life and the complications therein implied two nights later, on my customary walk.
           I feel distinctly as though there’s a dagger in my side, for some reason or another. I keep looking behind me, searching for the trail of blood I must be leaving.
           I walk further than usual tonight. I wonder lethargically if I’m running away.
           It’s actually one of the better ideas I’ve had recently, all things considered.
           I never ran away from home when I was little.
           I was too sensible.
           At least I like to think that.
           But now I wonder if something’s missing me in me now, like I skipped a crucial developmental stage in not doing it.
           I must have skipped something somewhere. I hope I did.
           I’m in a neighborhood now that is about as familiar as the surface of the sun, though considerably chillier.
           I realize resignedly that it’s time to turn for home.
           I still don’t have the impulsiveness for escape.
         The strength.
           Except just as I begin my sensible steps toward bed, I hear a muffled scream of terror. See Lucky.
           The scream doesn’t make a dent. Not yet.
           But…Lucky, here.
           On the other side of town.
           It’s possible he has followed me.
           But it’s much more likely that the jigsaw pieces all fit together and that he followed someone else.
           I glance around, shivering for the first time in the sharp twenty-degree-at-best night. There’s not a soul in sight, and possibly that includes Lucky and me, since I’m not sure cats have souls and I’m almost certain mine was sucked out some time ago.
           Star could be called a kind of vortex, that way.
           I’ve given everything to her.
           Why?
           What does she use me for?
           What if I want to use me?
           Then I see a figure exit a house two down from the one I stand before. The address, nailed up in burnished gold plastic, glints in the dim light of dusky, consuming night. Four thirty-two Lincoln Avenue.
           Lucky lopes to catch up with this new character on the nocturnal stage, his black fur rippling moonlight.
           He has dark hair. Like Miles.
           And like Elif.

           After following him for a few blocks, Lucky spontaneously trots back to me. I pick him up, hoist him over my shoulder, and abandon pursuit.
           Kira’s house is bright with the glow of halogen as I approach, a beacon on a street of black fog.
           I knock on the door.
           I feel my insides dissolving. Rapidly.
           How can I be doing this?
           Why am I doing this?
           Is it defiance? I know what you’re hiding, Star.
           Is it hope? Prove me wrong, Star.
           Or is it confusion, mere intoxication on the sweet night air?
           Forgive me, Star.
           Sure enough, though my prescience has never failed to fail me before, Star answers the door.
           She’s daring in an orange silk kimono top, revealing a perfect isosceles of white skin between the graceful “v” of her collarbone and the surprised “o” of her belly button.
           Her face is taut as rope when she sees me.
           “I brought back Lucky for you.” Stating the obvious never ameliorates an awkward situation, but I do it anyway, with my usual lack of planning.
           Star’s eyes narrow, Japanese to match her outfit.
           It’s all for aesthetic effect, I’m sure. She’ll haute couture me into submission.
           She knows where I found Lucky.
           And what else I found.
           That scream could have meant anything. Vigorous tickling. “Dracula” on TNT.
           But Star’s face has just confirmed the suspicion bubbling to prominence in my mind.
           Is this what I came for?
           There are no pretenses between us now. Mostly.
           So Star doesn’t bother to disguise the direct threat in her voice. Much.
           “I’ve just had another vision from Skadi,” she says, her hatred like lava in a volcano. About to erupt.
           “There’s now an official curfew.”
           Her eyes are as hard as the gates of Hell.
           But as cold as ice.
           “There are to be no more night walks.”
 
           Star is predictably unpredictable, the next day as cheerful as Cheerios, with the gaudy lacquer of competitive jungle flowers.
           Effusive, saccharine, blindingly bright, all in an effort to mitigate her midnight malice.
           I would assume, anyway.
           She’s on her cell phone all morning, though, and after a nauseating exchange of proper pleasantries, she ignores me completely.
           If smilingly.
           It doesn’t take long for me to guess who she’s talking to.
           Twenty questions have never been less necessary.
           “No, no, why should we wait? Screw the pattern. They’re going to be gone all the next two weeks…”
           On the other hand, I try very hard not to guess the topic.
           “I know I wasn’t in on the first ones. But I want to be in on – when is it? Next week, I think.”
           She talks in the choppy, inelegant way people commonly do on telephones. It makes it a little easier to pretend she’s speaking Lithuanian.
           I wasn’t surprised this morning to see the headlines.
           Seventeen-year-old boy dead.
           Four thirty-two Lincoln Avenue.

           “What has happened to Miles, anyway?”
           I pull books out of my locker blandly. My mission in life today is to keep all words from registering in my brain. It makes all things less painful.
           That must be the secret to World Peace.
           Ignoring everyone.
           Today, if I could claim to be wounded, words would be salt. Sea salt.
           Big chunks of it.
           Spacing out on purpose, however, is more difficult than it would appear.
           “I know. He’s been so weird, lately.”
           The name “Miles” is like some kind of computer code, to make things worse. Whenever I hear it, I’m programmed to snap immediately to attention.
           “I hope he cheers up. Jeez-us. It’s his birthday next week, man.”
           “Well, they don’t call it ‘sweet seventeen’, do they?”

           I go to the scheduled sacrifice, though it’s just another big lie.
           Of course, I was lying before too.
           Only Star is aware of it now.
           That’s pretty much my life in a nutshell.
           The fragrant smoke of the ritual fire is just as suffocating as before.
           I’m just as helpless.
           Has anything really changed?
           It occurs to me suddenly, as another guileless, blameless creature is brought up for slaughter, that no one of the public at large has uttered a word about all the missing cats.
           It seems this loss pales in comparison with the gaping hole of the dead boys.
           I try to have an opinion about this, but my opinion-formulating capacity is zero, a rock washed smooth by the gentle ocean.
           Niceness can be deceptive.
           Why does everything have to hide behind something else?
           And usually something so misleading?
           The girl with the animal-to-be-sacrifice steps forward.
           I scent trouble practically before the red curls register.
           Oracene.
           And for all Star’s frivolity on the subject of my suspicions, I can see she doesn’t trust the purple-eyed witch either.
           Oracene produces the sacrifice from behind her back, her arms strong, straight, indicative of her complete lack of mental vacillation. White in the firelight.
           Lucky.
           Star attempts to cry out, to prevent the horror that is inevitably coming, but the other girls know nothing of her connection with this cat.
           There is a final yowl that visibly rends Star’s adamant heart.
           And a trickle of red on Oracene’s victorious fingers.

           I end up in the church.
           I know what you’re thinking.
           Well, at least I know what I’m thinking, and that’s something along the lines of What In God’s Name Am I Doing?
           The pews are vacated, this time of night.
           But there are candles lit in the choir loft.
           I climb the rickety stairs, not sure what I’m doing or what I’m expecting.
           And determined all the same.
           There’s still cotton snow floating about the place, glittery garlands left over from Christmas. They evoke a kind of nostalgic sadness: has it all gone already, so quickly?
           As I stumble up the steps, I feel as though this is the end of something, the summit. If I can only make it to the top here, I can rest.
           All I can think is, Don’t let me cry. Please God, don’t let me cry.
           I have been crying for so long.
           The thought of more saltwater is almost nauseating. And I’m queasy as it is.
           The choir loft is empty, with the exception of a candelabra, the priest, and an abundance of aromatic wood. There’s sawdust everywhere.
           The priest looks up. “Hello. Did you want something?”
           I don’t know this man, I think suddenly. I’ve been going to this church for years and I can’t even remember his name.
           He’s never meant anything before.
           I look away from his steady brown eyes. I feel dirty, irreverent, bathed in the blood of everything I’ve done. How dare I set foot in this holy place?
           “What are you doing?”
           The question flees my lips unbidden. It’s brusque, impolite.
           I hate myself for it.
           Not that I don’t already. Hate myself.
           But the priest is genial, smiley. “Our crucifix is beyond repair, I’m afraid. I’m just going to have to make a new one.” He gestures to the surrounding squalor of sawdust with mild amusement. “As you can see, I’m well on my way.”
           I wonder if he remembers what part I played in his working now.
           I see from his worried eyes that he does.
           “Oh-“ I feel tears rising. I fiercely push them down. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t…”
           “Do anything,” he finishes firmly. “That woman was just a little overexcited, that’s all.”
           I stop short, my eyes wet and an inexorable lump in my throat. “You don’t…you don’t…?”
           “My dear, be logical. How could you have caused the crucifix to fall?” He smiles at me. “I happen to know that those chains have needed to be replaced for years. Merely a coincidence.”
           Try again.
           Desperately, “But…”
           He raises his eyebrows and laughs pleasantly. “Would you prefer to believe it’s a sign from God? Very well, then. It’s a veritable message that He wants me to take up woodworking instead of sitting on my you-know-what all day. Even priests need hobbies, you know.”
           To my own immense surprise, I laugh.
           Crow’s feet emerge in the priest’s already crinkly skin like tin foil. “Now that’s more like it. You needn’t worry about it at all, my dear.”
           I shuffle sawdust with the toe of my devoted Reebok and wait for the inevitable.
           He’s been nice thus far, but self-restraint is possible in adults.
           It can’t last too much longer.
           The priest placidly continues planing.
           The silence becomes unbearable after a while.
           Finally I burst out, the first raindrop from a heavy cloud, “You know I’m a Skadi girl. Why aren’t you lecturing me?”
           He looks up. “Is that what you come for? I may be able to service you if you insist on being lectured, though I would rather not.”
           “I’m the worst of the worst!” I exclaim. “Aren’t you supposed to convert me?”
           “Now, now, don’t get too ardent about it.” Chuckling. “And, no, I don’t believe I am, as a matter of fact. I think that’s already taken care of.”
           “But you…” And stop, bewildered.
           “You already know that your involvement with Skadi is wrong. You wouldn’t have come and behaved as you have otherwise. It would be redundant and insulting to your obvious intelligence to repeat it – and forgive me for just doing so, if you would.”
           Stand and stare at him. Utterly speechless.
           “Is that all you wanted, my dear? Because reassurance is something I can almost unfailingly offer.”
           Open and shut my mouth like a gaping goldfish for a few moments. Eventually get a proper “goodbye” out.
           As I stutter down the stairs, so arduous on the way up and forgettable on the way back, I feel a warm wave of grateful affection like the enveloping heat of a fire for the priest overcome me.
           And it’s pure. I don’t have to second-guess it, don’t have to grudgingly poke through my memories and wonder what he’s hiding.
           I haven’t felt so secure in an unearthly amount of time.
           The face of Jesus smiles at me from the stained-glass windows.

           Star haunts the hallways, her eyes red restless wraiths.
           I wouldn’t even have to have watched as many movies as I have to know what’s on her mind.
           Vengeance.
           At the very least, some powerful venting.
           I avoid her as best I can.
           Unfortunately, in doing this, I forget to avoid Miles.
           In fact, so far am I from avoiding him that I run smack into him, coming around the corner toward the cafeteria.
           As I try to capture the loosed papers, I remember despairingly that I still don’t believe in coincidences.
           Why is it that the definitive decision I have made in the last year keeps coming back to bite me?
           Miles hands me math book, along with a tentative smile.
           Good Lord.
           The man who aced Romance 101 is now flunking out in the real world.
           Has he failed to give up hope in me?
           “Thanks,” I sigh. I’m far too tired to be mean now. For once it’s easier to be nice, though I may regret the complications this will most probably invoke.
           His broadening smile hits me like a meteor. “How’ve you been, Lourdes?”
           Softly.
           I glance at his wan face and say unintentionally, “You look awful, if that helps.”
           He laughs. He knows what I mean, which is fairly impressive, as I’m not entirely sure if I do. “Ditto. And it does. Help, I mean.”
           I feel myself smile and realize with surprise like a blooming rose that I mean it.
           We stand up, dust off our jeans.
           Stand in an awkward bubble of quiet amidst the obnoxious buzz of too many conversations in too little space.
           “Lourdes?”
           I look up, but try not to focus too closely on his eager eyes, his hopeful smile. There’s something real, genuine, about Miles now that he never had all his charming months with Star, or that seductive night at the dance. He’s shed his appealing semi-precious skin, to find that underneath, to everyone’s surprise, he’s got diamonds anyway.
           Now that I’ve discovered this, I’m terrified.
           Guilty, even.
           “Yeah?”
           “There’s a movie on Friday, you know…that is, do you want to go?”
           His invitations are getting more efficient, I observe.
           I burst into laughter.
           I can’t help myself.
           There is blue sky at the heart of hurricanes.
           “I don’t believe it,” I murmur, shaking my head.
           His lips dance alternately between a frown and a grin, indecisively. “What do you mean?”
           “Nothing. Nothing. It’s just I’ve been such a jerk…” I smile shyly. “What is the world going to do with you, Miles? You’re only sixteen. You’re supposed to get over it, whatever it is.”
           “S-seventeen,” he whispers, relieved. “It was my birthday yesterday.”
           But before I can congratulate him, confess that I’ve never been more sorry in my life, tell him all the thousand things that have screwed up my life and our potential relationship, a third member joins our little celebration.
           “Miles!”
           The voice is dictatorial.
           The voice is wrathful.
           The voice is threatening, imminent as a newly tangent cyclone.
           The voice is Star’s.
           We leap apart like same poles on two magnets. Her force could power an SUV.
           “I thought you were through with duplicity, Miles,” she snarls. I wonder at “duplicity” – for all his popularity he had never been known for that vice. “What in the universe do you think you’re doing?”
           Miles, never one to quail before Christmas Past and other such similar ghosts, announces stolidly, “Nothing that concerns you, evidently. I seem to remember something about you breaking up with me…and I think that means you waive all rights to knowing what goes on in my life and the power to do anything about it.”
           “Oh really?” It’s a challenge.
           The hall is suddenly so cold with Star’s icy tone that I’m shocked to see my breath isn’t white.

           I take a walk that night, as I’m accustomed to, now.
           There’s a colossal mountain of things on my mind, all of which I’m going to have to dissect minutely if I expect to get any sleep tonight.
           It seems unusually dark, my mind notices, straying early to irrelevant, more comfortable subjects.
           But I shove it all out. I don’t have time for mental vacations to the Bahamas; at the moment I need to deal with rock-hard, unforgiving reality.
           There are more positive things to contemplate than I’m used to. Perhaps that explains my distaste for germane topics.
           As you may have guessed, I don’t acclimate very well or quickly.
           I’m a Darwinian failure, pretty much.
           So. First things first.
           Star.
           Obviously she’s up to something.
           Am I going to let myself care?
           I hesitate ambivalently.
           Though I will regret it, No. I won’t.
           Moving on. Next, Miles.
           He…
           I stop dead, nearly tripping over the curb.
           A decade later, everything has clicked into making perfect sense.
           I break into an abrupt run.

           Why didn’t I see this before?
            I curse myself into a steady rhythm of panic.
           Idiot, idiot, idiot.
           Who does Star despise above all others?
           (Besides me, after this morning.)
           Who would make her suddenly want to join Elif’s lethal solo act?
           And who has just mortally offended her and incidentally, just turned seventeen?
 
           It’s a lucky thing that during Star and Miles’ rocky last days, she generally hauled me along for moral support. Which, at the time, Miles didn’t seem to mind at all, as it was nearly as awkward for him.
           I have memorized the location of Miles’ house. I could pinpoint it from the Goodyear Blimp.
           And I may have to, metaphorically speaking. It’s black as death.
           After what is akin to eternity or at least ten million millennia, I swing around the corner of Miles’ street.
           There isn’t one speck of illumination.
           Why did Miles have to choose this night to retire early?
           Why did God have to choose this night to drench the world in opaque black ink?
           No coincidences, no coincidences, pounds in my ears, a premature threnody.
           I start screeching two houses early, just for good measure.
           “Miles! Miles! Wake up!”
           His front door is locked, so I promptly hoist up the window and hop through.
           Good thing Star instituted that exercise plan.
           I land unceremoniously in the Creighton front hall. Except for the ticking of the clock, vulgar in the foreboding peace of the house, there is an utter absence of sound.
           Tick.
           Tock.
           After a minute, I relax. I’m being stupid, I realize. What necessarily implied that they would attack tonight, if at all?
           Laughing quietly at myself, I decide to check Miles’ room.
           Just in case.
           I wince at the creaking of the stairs. For all my recent vociferousness, I desire to be perfectly silent now; I am breaking and entering after all, if for a good cause. I’m lucky the Creighton’s don’t have a dog.
           His door is just at the top of the staircase. Another only child like myself, he owns the upstairs entirely though it consists of only three rooms: a bedroom, a bathroom, a small den.
           Funny how each detail of this place is so easily recalled.
           It’s as if I knew I would need it.
           I turn the knob to his room gently. Waking him up for no good reason would be kind of embarrassing, not to mention explaining my presence in the first place.
           Wham.
           I, horror-struck, catch a brief glimpse of Elif’s black eyes, before I tumble gracelessly down the stairs, rebounding from his blow.
           “Miles!” I scream. The last resource left to me is my vocal chords. Fortunately, that is one weapon I am not afraid to wield.
        “Miles! Wake up! Miles!”
           My vision blurs with bizarrely colored figures, dancing, leering, and I can’t stand up…oh God I’m dizzy…
           “Miles!”
           Through my damaged retinas I perceive a flicker of light.
           “Lourdes?…Oh – who – get out of my room!”
           I try fruitlessly to stand.
           I collapse on the wood floor, jarring my bones.
           I am definitely going to need to see a chiropractor after this.
           We won’t go into the psychiatric side of the matter just now.
           I crawl erratically up the stairs, my heart louder than Heaven in my head. Miles’ voice, however, somehow penetrates the oblivion of noise.
           “Lourdes! The police!”
           I stop crawling, confused. It takes several moments to process Miles’ plea. Either my brain is suddenly bureaucratic, or I’ve just suffered a major blow to the head.
           When I do finally get around to it, I remember there’s a phone in the den.
           I also am momentarily sane enough to be very curious as to where in the world Miles’ parents are right now.
           And how the police are going to offer any immediate assistance.
           I falter towards the den, my hands scouring the floor before me for possible obstacles.
           Ironic that I should be blind on the night that I finally open my eyes.
           I fall through the den door, which is luckily ajar, and onto the fuzzy den carpet.
           Then I look up, confused; there’s a light on.
           And like a poisonous purple flower, there stands Oracene, in violet vinyl and lilac stilettos. She raises her eyebrows in greeting. Smacks her bubble gum.
         Somehow it is sinister. If bubble gum can be considered sinister.
         But if there’s one thing I’ve learned by now, it’s that I have no judgment in matters such as these.
           Oracene’s on the phone.
           “Hello? Is this 911?” Smack. Her face is sober, though I’ve never seen those loathsome purple eyes without some kind of disdainful spark. “Murder in progress. Yeah. 1040 Chelsea Street.” Smack. Smack. “Thanks for your help.”
           Click.
           Smack.
           Now she glances down at me. “Glad to know you’ve seen the light.”
           I just blink.
           Without further explanation, she walks calmly out of the room, as out of place as a placid ocean in the middle of a typhoon.
           I am able to stand again.
           I take full advantage of my recovery by dashing out into the hall frantically.
           Too quickly, though, apparently.
           I am still getting my sea legs.
           I enter Miles’ room with an ungainly thud.
           I scramble clumsily to my feet, expecting to have my made my grand entrance in the midst of a terrifying climax, involving Elif, Miles, a very sharp knife, and some scenes from the violent video games my parents have never let me play.
           Instead, Miles is holding a baseball bat limp at his side, and staring in disbelief at the incongruous figure of Oracene, dressed to the nines and utterly calm.
           Instead Star is huddling, cowering, a knife inches from where she crouches. Elif stands over her, face white, like ghosts, like innocence, like the heaven Skadi kept promising.
           I lean against the wall and try to figure out what exactly has just taken place.
           Miles jumps off the bed, pale but with much more vitality left in him than I expected. “Are you ok?”
           But before I understand his words, Oracene has taken command of all of our attention. Her eyes draw us like magnets, and I am vaguely aware that I am witnessing the falling of a star.
         Of Star.
         “I have called the police.” Oracene’s voice doesn’t waver. Her tone is taut as a tightrope. “You are both going to be punished.”
         A cry escapes the finally defeated Star.
         Rome falls, Alexander’s fever conquers, the snake’s fangs snap onto Cleopatra, all in the small space of Miles Creighton’s bedroom.
         “You are disgusting,” continues Oracene, but her voice carries emotion now. “You have desecrated an entire city, an entire population. And for what?”
         Star moans again.
         My heart pounds.
         My heart breaks.
         “For a spotlight. For revenge. I know all about it.”
         Elif has grasped the shoulder of his love, but she brushes him away.
         I understand somehow, suddenly, that none of this has anything to do with him any longer.
         Or with Miles.          
         Star and I stand at opposite sides of the room.
         I try to look at her, to see the face that has brought me through so much, led my soul though so many doubtful valleys, but she hides from me.
         Oracene keeps talking. I have the distinct, sudden feeling of impending disaster.
         A wall of water, poised to fall.
         A mountain, about to crumble.
         An avalanche, about to crash.
         The sun about to explode.
         “You were in love, weren’t you?” whispers Oracene. She is no longer contemptuous; she is incredulous, amazed, and revolted. “In love with Miles.
         “You weren’t afraid of losing his love. How could you be?
         “No one has ever not loved you.
         “When he told you he loved Lourdes, you couldn’t take it, could you?
         “You broke up with him.
         “Never told your best friend a word.
         “Started something to be occupied. Started Skadi. Realized in the midst of it that you had a powerful weapon in those fingers, in that voice.
         “Convinced Elif to carry out your schemes. Plan your revenge.
         “All because your sick mind had a beautiful body to manipulate.”
           The tsunami falls.
         The mountain crumbles.
         The avalanche crashes.
         The sun explodes.
         My heart shatters.
           I look wildly to Star, ignore Miles’ attempt to catch my attention. “Star?”
         She hides her eyes.
         Again, my voice shaking, years of devotion and love and thousands of gallons of shed tears pounding up in my throat, “Star?”
         She turns away.
         I cross the room, the Rubicon.
         “Star? You didn’t…why…?”
         She utters a faint scream, and sinks to the ground in a dead faint.
 
         Elif and Star are apprehended by the police, who arrive promptly too late.
           I don’t think I’ll forget the look Star gave me, when she finally looked, the police lights illuminating her face a ghostly blue, a vengeful red.
           For all her silence in Miles’ room, she was certainly brimming over.
           Like a star about to implode.
           She was a white rose for so long. I’m not sure I can get used to her, now that she’s shown her true colors. Scarlet was never her style.
           Things change.
           Don’t they?
           Now I have to ask myself is she always had the capacity for this wickedness or if it unexpectedly attached itself and fed, like some sort of parasitic worm. The ones you get in Africa.
           She opened the clouds for the sunrise and drew the curtains of the night.
           But she is human, after all.
           And subject to the jurisdiction of the county court, as it is.
           The funny thing about all this is that no one can find Kira. Her apartment is completely abandoned.
           There’s no sign of her whatsoever.
           Life is a series of brief opportunities. Good timing is critical and it doesn’t really matter if it’s accomplished through foresight or dumb luck.
           (Even though I still don’t believe in coincidences.)
           Thus, all I can say is Kira’s case is, Good timing.
           Elif is nineteen. So, he is being tried as an adult for four murders and one attempted murder.
           Bad timing.
           Star, on the other hand, has been temporarily deployed to an asylum, known in the vernacular as “The Institution”.
           They’re pleading not guilty by reason of severe chemical imbalances.
           “They” being her parents, that is.
           Who, absent for the entirety of the Skadi fiasco, have now turned up out of the blue.
           I daresay no one can tell if Star’s happy about that one.
           Skadi, needless to say, has been disbanded. Star’s secrets let out.
           It’s strange to think that it’s already a memory, an experience swept past like a feather on the wind.

           Miles and I randomly go for a drive.
           It’s just decided.
           Miles’ parents just got back from their truncated vacation; he’d rather not deal with them.
           And I’m not complaining.
           Mere minutes later, I can’t remember if we discussed it verbally or not.
           I can’t blame this on a faulty memory.
           As of late, it’s been functioning impeccably.
           We head out of town, a consoling feeling of nowhere surrounding us.
           It’s miles of brown grass and spiky dead trees.
           I’m swallowed in a vast monotony of scenery.
           How nice.
           Miles and I don’t talk. There’s nothing we need to say, or that we want to say. The silence is better. More appropriate.
           Our woes are understood, shared. Mutual empathy clogs the car like cigarette smoke.
           Only not nearly as noxious.
           I rest my elbows on the dashboard, stare at the approaching emptiness, peaceful.
           I start to cry.
           But it’s all right.
           It’s good to cry.
           I know exactly why I’m crying now. Which is comforting in itself.
           Star is gone. She was my foundation, my structure, my skeleton, for so many years. My support. I depended on her.
           She was my dam that kept water from wreaking havoc on every curve of my life. So I thought.
           The floodgates are open.

           I go to The Institution. The Institution.
           To visit Star.
           I wonder if I’m guilty. Or what.
           It’s a nice facility, considering its purpose. Sweeping lawns, prim landscaping. High rosebush hedges.
           Barbed wire fences.
           Star sits on one of the faux marble benches along the path to the building itself. Kicks at the gravel. She wears at typical hospital gown, drab and utterly without glamour.
           She makes it beautiful.
           And I can recognize her beauty still, can sense distantly its power.
           The only difference is, really, that I’ve stopped underestimating what lies beneath.
           Ironic. Isn’t it?
           I worshipped her for years.
           But underestimated her the entire time.
           I hug my sweater around me, for protection. A spiny skin. It’s warmer now; I’ve shed the polar fleece.
           But knitted wool is not thick enough to protect me here.
           I should have worn the fleece, in retrospect.
           “Hi, Star.”
           “Hi.” Tonelessly.
           “How are you?”
           She shrugs. Lifelessly.
           “Star, I’m – I’m…”
           “You’re sorry?” she snarls, whirling to face me. She laughs harshly.
           “Star…I…” I stammer helplessly.
           She concentrates on her soccer game with the walkway again.
           “Why did you do it, Star?” I whisper.
           She smiles wryly. “You want to know? Really, now, Lourdes?”
           I nod, anticipatorily miserable.
            She flips her hair out of her eyes. It’s still exquisite as ever.
           I wonder if The Institution provides Pantene Pro-V to its inmates.
           “It’s pretty simple, Lourdes.” Her eyes light up, almost affectionately. “It’s like Oracene said. You heard the whole thing. I wanted power. I got power.”
           If I had been temporarily deaf, missed her last affirmation entirely, her luminous, sapphire eyes would have drawn me in, the deadly irises of Medusa.
           But I am not deaf. I am disgusted.
           Because I see that she has always wanted this. If Miles had not sparked the revolution, something else would have. I have just been too myopic to try and prevent the inevitable catastrophe.
           It’s a fine balance in this world. Love and hate are so intermingled, so tangled together that it’s more than difficult to distinguish one or the other. I had it all wrong for such a long time.
         “You have no idea what it’s like, Lourdes,” she says, her voice mist rising softly off the water, “to hold so many peoples’ wills just on your fingertips…”
           “No,” I agree dryly. “I don’t.”
           “You wouldn’t,” she replies.
           I hesitate. The whole world seems to be spinning backwards. “So there wasn’t anything true? It was all a lie?”
           Star looks annoyed. “Lourdes. Skadi is an obscure Norse goddess. Do you really believe any of that crap was real?”
           I know all this. I haven’t been faithful for weeks now.
           But I wish desperately that Star had believed in it. For a little while, at least.
           It wouldn’t excuse her. But I can’t swallow, can’t forgive this person before me, this monster she’s become, unmitigated.
           “You’re so…there’s something wrong with you, Star,” I gasp, unthinkingly. I can’t even comprehend the depth, the extent of her…
           “I’ve got psychological problems, haven’t you heard?” she snaps sarcastically. “Convenient, isn’t it?”
           She eyes me, condescendingly.
           Her back is rigid, the posture of a queen.
           A queen clinging to the rubble of her fallen fortress.
           “They told you that, didn’t they?”
           “No,” I answer, my voice shaky but resolute. “I figured it out all by myself, for a change.”

           The foothills echo with my footfalls. Utterly devoid of life.
           These pale limbs of Mother Earth embrace me, smile bravely through their dying splendor.
           It takes effort for me to return that smile.
           The swollen clouds above are pregnant with the first spring rains, but not a drop has fallen. The crisp brown grass whistles with the zephyr’s kiss.
           I find Star’s pulpit, the blackened stump, curling with chimerical shapes.
           Well, I have learned at least one thing from all this.
           Evil sometimes hides beneath pretty wrapping paper.
           In Star’s case, a flawless tan and a Cover Girl worthy smile.
           And then there are people like Oracene, who you can never decide whose side they’re on. Or if they’re on one at all.
           You just thank whatever god you hold dear that they love you, for the moment.
           I climb onto the stump, stare at the hills that have witnessed so much.
           Did they know from the beginning what was to pass?
           Or did they lay mutely in shock when they realized?
           Either way, they’re sympathetic. I try to smile at them, show my gratitude.
           I am sore with the bruises of memory.
           It is a Herculean task, to live every day.
           I’ll respect any septuagenarian you throw at me, from now on. Eighty and up. I may have to live that long with the burden of those four dead boys on my shoulders.
           It’s fair to blame myself, no matter what anyone says.
           I should have seen Star for what she was.
           I whisper to the earth that I am sorry.
           I think of what the priest told me.
           Is this all a sign from God?
           A random chain of events?
           Does it mean anything?
           And suddenly I don’t care what it is. What it was.
           I’ve survived.
           I will survive, even with the weight of these months heavy in my heart. I realize I have to be glad, because for me, all in all, this is victory.
           I’m so jubilant I want to sing.
           (Which is saying something, with my vocal abilities.)
           I raise my arms up to the sky, knowing unquestionably that I am finally free.
           “I am not your God, Star, but neither are you mine!”
           Somehow I think she has already, finally heard me.